Alveoli

Lungs

The lungs form part of the metal element of the five oriental elements. Breathing exemplifies the highest profile of duality. If we only inhale, we die. If we only exhale, we die. We need both. The act of inhaling is a contraction and the act of exhaling is an expansion. The act of breathing holds the polarity of welcoming (receiving) or of the refusal to receive (I will not take in what is not good for me); as well as the polarity of giving or not giving.

The main role of the lungs is to protect us from the outside. Lungs filter dust, get rid of carbon monoxide and respond, react to the aggressions caused by the environment.

The act of breathing, through its duality, connects us with the supernatural, the universe, the fountain of creation, and the metaphysical. Breathing allows our union with life. Breathing keeps human beings from isolation.

Consequently, breathing represents contact and relationship. This contact with the outside is carried out through the alveoli.

The contact we have with another person through the skin is voluntary. Either I want to touch or not. The contact through breathing, however, is not. It just happens, period!

The first blow gives life, the last releases it.

The first blow detaches us from the Mother. We become individual entities.

Here we use two keywords to describe the respiratory system’s own duality: Freedom and grasp. Contact, liberation and communication.

People with respiratory problems have difficulty living life, protecting themselves from the exterior or even expressing themselves in the presence of people who assault them.

Lung-related tensions are thus connected to the feeling of being assaulted by someone, and, simultaneously, fear of death, whether physical death or the end of a cycle. It may just be the fear of losing a relationship. And it can be fear of dying, which is the fear of releasing the last breath. The person is very scared of asphyxiating. It must be stressed again that what we mean by attack is not something objective. We refer to what the person felt as being a form of attack.

Lungs are led by the cerebral hemispheres of the cortex. For this reason, the lung on the right side is yang, masculine, it represents the man, the Father, the husband. The lung on the left side is yin, feminine, and it represents the Mother, the woman. This applies both to left and right-handed people.

If the person feels a man assaulted him, this will affect the right side lung. If he felt assaulted by a woman, the lung on the left side will be affected.

Contrary to what happens with the pleura, when it comes to the lungs we are talking about all types of people, whether they are close or not. It could be a stranger, a schoolteacher, a sports teacher, a passer-by or even someone close. The pleura is connected only to very close people.

Another difference between the pleura and the lungs is that symptoms in the pleura, besides aggression being felt only when it involves people who are close, also indicate that something disgusted the person. This does not happen in the case of the lungs.

The feeling of aggression affecting the lungs is mostly related to communication and aggressiveness issues.

In the case of pneumonia, an inflammation of the lungs by infectious germs, the tension is associated to a feeling provoked by serious external aggression, extremely painful, and it also shows that the person has no defences of his own. “I need to be protected! Who will protect me? I have a serious communication problem. I cannot make myself understood. I am not understood. Who will protect me and understand my suffering?”

In the case of lung cancer, the body develops tumors in the alveoli, making the lung more efficient. In fact, a cancer-ridden lung works more efficiently than a healthy lung. The person needs more air in order to live and so the body grants the person a lung that is more efficient. In this case, the tension associated to aggression is enormous and, above all, the person does not verbalize it and keeps it within himself. The body always ends up uncovering it.

Tuberculosis follows a previous lung problem. It only shows up when the person no longer feels the aggression tension that lived in his conscience. Tuberculosis does manifest itself when the person is already recovering, no longer feels assaulted but still feels very fragile. The emotions that the person who suffers from tuberculosis feels are loneliness, melancholy, sorrow, and sadness. Loss of hope and confidence to go on living. It may be an unconscious manifestation of a repressed sadness from childhood.